The Jerusalem Assassin

by Joel C. Rosenberg

“Okay, Father—I love you, too.”

  Al-Azzam hung up the phone. He could see in his assistant’s eyes that she was desperate to know what was going on, but he didn’t know himself. He motioned for her to join the rest of the group; then he turned and looked out the window.

  Something was wrong. Very wrong. And the old man suddenly feared he knew what.

  107

  Marcus hung up the phone and slid it into his back pocket.

  A medic with Mishmar Hagvul offered to give the Syrian sedatives. But Marcus shook his head. Relieving this man’s pain was not the way to make him talk. Instead, Marcus walked over and drove his left boot down on al-Qassab’s right shoulder. For a moment, the man went rigid and made not a sound. But only for a moment. Then he unleashed a shriek that didn’t seem human.

  “Good morning, Mohammed,” Marcus said, pressing down even harder.

  “You’re making a mistake!” the man screamed at the top of his lungs—in Hebrew, no less. “I’m Jewish. I’m an Israeli!”

  The commander of the Border Patrol translated the lines for Marcus, then laughed out loud. “This man is not Jewish, and he’s certainly not an Israeli.”

  “But I am, I am,” al-Qassab now said in English but with an Israeli accent.

  The commander scoffed. “Agent Ryker, I grew up in this country. I’ve been with the Border Patrol for more than twenty-five years. This man may know Hebrew, but he is an Arab, not a Jew.”

  “Well, I guess there’s a simple way to find out,” said Marcus. “Strip him.”

  The commander’s eyes went wide, as did those of the writhing prisoner.

  “Strip him now, and we’ll know for sure.”

  The commander shrugged when he saw where this was going. He waved over his deputy and several other men. In the end, it actually took six Israelis to keep al-Qassab pinned down. But they stripped him, all right, until he was completely naked. When they saw that he was not circumcised, they had their answer. This was no Jew. But Marcus was relieved for a far different reason. There were no signs on al-Qassab’s stomach or chest that he had recently undergone surgery. That meant he wasn’t about to blow up. But it also meant there was still someone out there who was.

  “Search the pockets,” Marcus ordered the commander, pointing to al-Qassab’s pants, “and put this man in cuffs, both hands and feet.”

  When the commandos found the mobile phone, Marcus nodded to it, and one of the soldiers handed it to him.

  “Listen,” Marcus told his prisoner, “we know you’re Mohammed al-Qassab. We know you’re Kairos. We know you entered the country last Friday, just after 3 p.m., on a direct flight from London. We found your safe house on the Mount of Olives. I was there. I saw the body of Ali Haqqani. I saw what you did to him and to the dentist, Daoud Husseini, and to his assistants and the paramedic.”

  A look of shock flashed across the man’s face.

  “That’s right, Mohammed—I know exactly what you’ve been up to,” Marcus continued as the winds began to pick up and al-Qassab shivered in the cold. “You ordered Haqqani to do surgery on your shahid, to plant a bomb in his chest and sew him back up. And then you didn’t need the good doctor anymore, so you wasted him.”

  Marcus squatted down until he was inches from the Syrian’s tormented face.

  “Now I want you to listen very closely, because I’m only going to say this one time. Do you understand me? I’m going to give you one chance to tell me the truth. If you tell me what I need to know, we’ll put a blanket over you and give you some morphine for the pain and put you in a warm car and take you someplace where we can chat further in a calm and civilized manner.”

  Marcus paused for effect, then lowered his voice as he continued.

  “However—and this is the important part, Mohammed—if you refuse to answer my next three questions, or if I believe you’re not telling me the truth, then I’m going to forget about your shoulder. I’m never going to give you morphine. Instead, I’m going to put a bullet through your right kneecap. If you still won’t talk to me, I’ll put a bullet through your left kneecap. And then we’ll reassess how we’re doing. Got it?”

  Al-Qassab had stopped screaming. He was fighting to maintain some last shred of dignity, but time was not on his side, and despite the defiance in his eyes, he knew it.

  “Question number one,” Marcus said. “How many people here in Israel have a body cavity bomb surgically inserted into some part of their body?”

  He waited a few seconds, then proceeded.

  “Question two—what are the names and exact locations of each of the bombers at this moment?”

  Again, Marcus paused for a few seconds.

  “Question three—how do we override the system and prevent the bombs from exploding?”

  For an instant, Marcus thought the man was actually going to answer him. Al-Qassab looked away, staring up at the sky and then down at the roof they were on. Then he looked up with vengeance and spat in Marcus’s face.

  Marcus instinctively recoiled, then calmly wiped away the bloody saliva with his sleeve. “Wrong answer, Mohammed.”

  He stood, drew the Sig Sauer from his shoulder holster, and wedged his foot beneath al-Qassab’s bloody shoulder. Leaning back and lifting his leg, he forced the man over onto his stomach. Then, as the Israeli commandos looked on in shock, Marcus leaned down, put the barrel of the pistol behind al-Qassab’s right knee, and squeezed the trigger.

  108

  A descending Black Hawk helicopter drowned out the shot.

  And the scream.

  There was no clear place to land, and Marcus doubted the roof of the adjacent apartment could withstand the chopper’s weight. Instead, it hovered about thirty feet above the roof. Two ropes dropped from the open side door. Two medics fast-roped down to the roof, and the soldiers still in the bird lowered a stretcher to them.

  Marcus watched as the medics checked Kailea’s vital signs. He saw them give her an injection of something and hook her up to an IV. They carefully lifted her onto the stretcher and strapped her in. Soon the soldiers in the chopper were hoisting her up and bringing her on board. The two medics were hoisted back up as well, and they were gone.

  Al-Qassab was still screaming. Marcus was about to reengage him, but his phone rang.

  “Ryker—go.”

  “Agent Ryker?” said the muffled voice at the other end, barely above a whisper.

  “Who is this?” Marcus asked, not recognizing the number on the caller ID.

  “Agent Ryker, this is Amin al-Azzam.”

  “Your Excellency?”

  “Yes, yes, I need to speak with you.”

  “Well, I apologize, but this is not a good time. Can you call back in a few—?”

  But the old man cut him off in midsentence. “No, you don’t understand, Agent Ryker. This is a matter of the utmost urgency.”

  “So is this, Your Excellency. Really, I will call you back—”

  But again al-Azzam cut him off. “My son-in-law is missing.”

  “Dr. Mashrawi?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you mean, missing?”

  “He cleared through security early this morning. But no one has seen him for the last few hours, and we haven’t been able to find him. I’ve sent my people throughout the grounds, but there’s no sign of him. Now one of your agents says he’s left.”

  None of this was making sense, and al-Qassab would not shut up. Marcus checked his watch, motioned for the commander to watch the prisoner, then pressed the phone to his ear, plugged the other ear with his finger, and walked away fifty feet or so to try to hear better. “Left?” he asked. “Left where?”

  “Left the grounds, into the Old City. My aide just handed me Hussam’s security lanyard. She says Hussam told one of your agents he had to attend to an emergency with his wife.”

  “Your daughter?”

  “Exactly.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “That’s just the thing, Agent Ryker. I calle
d Yasmine. She’s fine. She’s at a neighbor’s, watching the coverage of today’s events. She says she hasn’t seen or heard from Hussam since he left for work, early this morning.”

  Again Marcus glanced at his watch. In his earpiece, he could hear the traffic picking up. POTUS and his colleagues were wrapping up their visit to the church. They were preparing to move to the Temple Mount. Marcus still had an enemy combatant to interrogate, and time was running out.

  “Look, Your Excellency, with all due respect, I don’t have time for a game of hide-and-seek. The entourage is leaving the Church of the Holy Sepulcher right now. They should be to your location in ten minutes. Now . . .”

  “Agent Ryker, listen to me,” the Grand Mufti nearly shouted through the phone. “Hussam is not only missing. I believe he may be the bomber you’re looking for.”

  109

  The hair on the back of Marcus’s neck stood erect.

  “How do you know we’re looking for a bomber?” he asked, so completely unprepared for, and chilled by, what the man had just said.

  “Come now, Agent Ryker, your agents have been up here for days. I hear what they talk about, no matter the hushed tones. I know what happened in London and in your own capital. I know what Kairos has threatened, and I see the extraordinary lengths you all are going to in order to make this summit secure.”

  “Then why help us?”

  “I promised you I would.”

  “But your entire life has been spent resisting the so-called Israeli ‘occupation’ of your land and the ‘oppression’ of your people.”

  “Never violently—not ever and not now. I am a devout Muslim and a fiercely loyal Palestinian, Mr. Ryker. I want justice for my people. I have never hidden that objective from you or from anyone. But with everything in my soul I oppose the use of violence to achieve my goals.”

  “So just to be clear, you’re accusing your own son-in-law of working for Kairos?”

  “It’s not an accusation; it’s a dread fear.”

  “Because he’s stepped into a prayer closet and you haven’t seen him for a while?”

  “No, no, of course not—listen to me, Agent Ryker. You must listen.”

  “I am listening, Your Excellency, but you have to make it fast.”

  “Remember last Wednesday? Hussam went to the dentist to have a root canal.”

  “So what?”

  “Maybe he did have a root canal. Maybe he didn’t. I don’t know. But I know he had surgery that day that was far more extensive than he let on.”

  “Go on.”

  “He didn’t come to work that day or Thursday or Friday. I went to visit him twice. Yasmine was beside herself. Hussam was on very strong painkillers. He would try to sleep but wake up screaming, take more medicine, then pass out. It went on like this for days. When he finally came back to work on Saturday, he could barely walk, barely stand. I finally sent him home. But all this for a root canal and the extraction of a wisdom tooth? No. I’ve had my share of root canals and other dental work, but I’ve never experienced anything like that. Daoud is highly competent. And Hussam is in excellent physical condition. He isn’t typically affected by pain. He barely takes aspirin, even for a headache. I’m telling you, Agent Ryker—this wasn’t dental surgery. Hussam had major surgery of another kind on Wednesday, and I fear he is planning something terrible.”

  “Wait, wait,” said Marcus. “Who did you just say?”

  “I said I fear Hussam is planning something terrible.”

  “No—before that. You mentioned a name.”

  “Daoud?”

  “Right, and the last name?”

  “Husseini.”

  “The dentist?”

  “Yes, he’s our family dentist, and I’m telling you, there’s no way he . . .”

  The Grand Mufti kept talking, but Marcus no longer could hear him. He had not even considered a connection between Hussam Mashrawi and Daoud Husseini. But that’s whose clinic he’d just been in. That’s whose apartment on the Mount of Olives Haqqani and al-Qassab had been staying in. That was the man he’d found shot to death in the break room just minutes before.

  “Listen to me very carefully,” Marcus said, interrupting the Grand Mufti. “I need you to order every single one of your staff off the Haram al-Sharif immediately. No one stays behind but you. No exceptions. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “No—there’s no time to argue or discuss this,” Marcus told him. “Is your staff gathered with you now?”

  “Yes, well, in my office. I’m in Hussam’s office down the hall.”

  “Okay, I’m going to call the special agent in charge, and he’s going to facilitate the evacuation of everyone up there. But I want you to stay in your office and near your landline. I’ll have some agents stay with you. Inside as well as out in the hall in front of your door. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t tell anyone on your staff what is happening or why. Not a soul. We don’t know who else may be in on this, but we have to move quickly.”

  “Yes, yes, I’m with you—I just pray to Allah that I am wrong.”

  Marcus was praying too, but he was quite certain the Grand Mufti was right.

  110

  Marcus speed-dialed the war room.

  The director of the White House advance team answered.

  “Joe, I need Carl.”

  “He stepped out.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. He said he’d be right back. Want me to reach him on his cell?”

  “No, no, I’ll do it,” Marcus replied. “But listen—we’ve got a situation developing.”

  “Yeah, we just heard you nabbed al-Qassab. That’s fantastic.”

  “Maybe not—where’s POTUS at this exact moment?”

  “Heading to the Temple Mount. They’re almost there now. Why?”

  “We have reason to believe there may be a suicide bomber up there. I’m still trying to get more details, but we can’t take any chances. You need to get your people off the site as quickly and quietly as you can.”

  “That’s Carl’s call, not mine.”

  “And I’m sure Carl will make it, but we don’t have time to wait. And while you’re at it, cut the live video feed—make it seem like a technical problem and tell the media your guys are working on it and should have it fixed in no time. You got that?”

  “I do, but you don’t really have the authority to—”

  Marcus hung up and speed-dialed Roseboro’s mobile phone. Again he got no answer, so he called Geoff Stone, who answered immediately.

  “Geoff, are you with the secretary?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And POTUS?”

  “And the PM and the king—why?”

  “Where are you?”

  “We’re just entering the Temple Mount now.”

  “Okay, look, Geoff, you need to get the principals into the secure holding room as quickly as possible, and you need to keep them there and harden up the detail. No one comes in or out until you hear from me or Carl. And I mean no one. You got it?”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “Dr. Hussam Mashrawi may be the bomber.”

  “The executive director of the Waqf? That’s impossible.”

  “That’s what I would have said, but his own father-in-law is accusing him.”

  “The Grand Mufti?”

  “Crazy, I know.”

  “How do you know it’s not a ruse?” Geoff asked.

  “I don’t—not yet—and that’s why I don’t want POTUS or the other principals anywhere near the Grand Mufti or Mashrawi until we can figure this thing out. In the meantime, brief the detail leaders but not the principals. Get them in the holding area, lock them down, and put your best guys in front of the door. I’m going to send you a photo of Mashrawi right now. Forward it to all the agents. If he’s spotted, he must be ordered to stop, strip to the waist, and lie down on his back, faceup. If he fails to comply in any way, sh
oot to kill. But under no circumstances get anywhere near him.”

  “Understood,” said Geoff.

  “All right, get to it.” Marcus ended the call and speed-dialed Roseboro again. But there was still no answer.

  Yasmine was watching live coverage of the arrival on the Haram al-Sharif.

  Suddenly the screen went black.

  A moment later, all she and her hosts could see was a test pattern. The shoemaker cursed and grabbed the remote. He began flipping through one news channel after another—first the Arabic ones, then those in Hebrew, and finally the European and American news networks. When he realized that all of them were showing the same test pattern, he switched back to the Al-Sawt channel. The anchors in Doha were apologizing for a glitch in the feed and promising to get it fixed as quickly as possible. In the meantime, they turned for comment to two Qatari political analysts on the set with them, both of whom began blasting the Saudi monarch for “betraying the Palestinian cause” and “defiling Islam” by trying to “normalize relations with the criminal colonialists occupying Palestine.”

  Peter Hwang picked up the receiver and hit line four.

  “Ops center, Hwang.”

  “Pete, it’s me,” said Marcus from half a world away.

  “Marcus, you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s Kailea I’m worried about.”

  “The chopper just landed at Hadassah,” Pete said, referring to Israel’s premier hospital on the west side of the capital. “They’re wheeling her into surgery as we speak. She was shot in the leg, and the bullet tore the femoral artery. Lost a lot of blood. They think they got her there in time, but we’ll know more in a few hours.”

  “Good—now, look, Pete, I need you to do me a favor.”

  “Of course, whatever you need.”

  “I’m going to hang up the phone now. But in two minutes, I need you to call me back. Okay?”

  “Sure, but why?”

  “You’ll understand then, but right now I’ve got to go.”